deep in the meadow
by a-convocation-of-fauns
Summary: Musings on the three trees that feature in the Hunger Games series.


**Hey, everyone! Look, I know I should be focusing on my other fanfictions,** **Children of Narnia** **and** **A Deeper Magic** **, but this just…** _ **came**_ **to me, you know how stories do that sometimes? Anyway, I knew I just had to get it down before I lost it. It's my first Hunger Games fic, so I'm not sure how it turned out. I really, really hope you all like it!**

 **Update: I noticed there was a spelling mistake in my original author's note. Apologies – I've fixed it now!**

the willow tree is young and slender and green. its branches sway like blades of grass in the breeze, but some have sworn they see them sway when the air is still.

underneath the canopy of its leaves it is cool and quiet. the children come to play under the branches, singing their songs, some of which are older than the tree itself.

the mockingjays sing too. always, always, the mockingjays sing, even when there is precious little to sing about.

they fall quiet and listen, sometimes, when a particularly good singer is heard, and then they take up the singer's tune and make it their own. when a man comes to the forest, hunting with his daughter, they always stop to listen to him.

willow trees, people say, are for sadness

misery

despair.

willows for weeping, as the old saying goes. but for some, this tree is a shelter, a refuge, a sanctuary. here it is safe and warm, and nothing can go wrong.

far, far away, under a sky that is not a sky, a girl lies dying under another willow tree. her friend sings to her as her eyes close and the last thing she sees are the willow branches swaying, even though there is no wind. the whole country sees her die, and many weep.

what they do not see is afterwards, when the girl's body is covered in flowers with the mockingjays singing her funeral song.

 _deep in the meadow under the willow_

the sun rises and sets and rises again, and the wind blows strongly. though the willow tree is bent and battered in the storm, it does not break.

OOO

the lightning tree is scarred, twisted, bent, rather like lightning itself. it is the largest tree you have ever seen, spreading down over the jungle like a giant's umbrella. it looks like shelter, safety, until fire leaps from the sky and turns every leaf, every twig into hissing

crackling

death.

when they first see the tree struck, these tiny, pitiful humans, they think that surely, it must be the work of gods, reaching down to touch the earth. surely such a wonder could only be a sign from heaven.  
(this is nonsense, of course, because the tree and the lightning both are the work of the Gamemakers, and the Gamemakers are not gods, but devils).

and yet. some, the more superstitious, think that the lightning tree's roots reach all the way to the centre of the earth, and its branches hold up the sky. but still, the lightning does not scorch the tree, until it arcs along a golden thread, wrapped round an arrow and fired back up to the sky. it turns the entire sky white, this almighty thunderclap. truly, it feels like the whole might of heaven's wrath has come down upon these poor pitiful humans.

but they survive. and what is more, they live. and the people watching at home whisper to each other, _we have never seen anything like this before._

OOO

the hanging tree is dead.

it has not sprouted leaves or flowers since before anyone alive can remember. it ought to have fallen down years ago, but, like hatred and sorrow, it is permanent.

it stands alone, in a clearing where only the foolish and despairing go. here it is silent. he mockingjays have not sung here since before the tree lost its leaves.

but there is another song heard here, the superstitious say. it is not a song any human could ever sing, nor would any want to. it is the sighing and sorrowing of the wind through the branches, mixed with the wailing of the spirits still bound to the tree, long after the rope necklaces that tethered them have rotted and fallen away.

 _are you are you coming? coming for me?_

some who came to the tree struggled and wept, not wanting to die.  
others went willingly, because they knew that what they left behind was worse than death.

no one knows when criminals first began to be hung in the tree. no one wants to know.

no one knows what they left behind either. some secrets are too terrible for anyone to know.

but if you wish to know, the superstitious and the fearful say, there is another song you must hear. on a night when the wind is still and the air is cold, go to the tree at midnight, and over the whispers of the spirits and ghosts, you will hear the tree itself sing. the tune is soft and ancient and dangerous. but no one can tell you what the words are, for no one who heard it sing ever came back to tell.

 _wear a necklace of rope side by side with me_

the seasons change but the tree does not. and the souls still sing their song of splendours and glooms, although no one can hear.

it is true what they say. strange things _did_ happen here. stranger things will happen still, and stranger, and stranger, for as long as there is air to breathe and stars in the sky.

 _are you_

 _are you_

 _coming to the tree?_


End file.
